SUNDERLAND — Ahead of the April 24 annual Town Meeting, the Selectboard and Finance Committee are discussing a potential override to shoulder increases in the Sunderland Elementary School and Frontier Regional School budgets, along with other departments.
“We have a number of serious other situations as well, so it’s going to be a year heavy on strategy and good thinking,” Town Administrator Becky Torres said to preface Monday’s budget discussion.
Without the override, the town would be able to raise property taxes by 2.5% plus $180,000, the new potential for levy capacity based on the $34,000 of new growth in Sunderland, according to Torres.
For the town’s fiscal year 2027 budget, health insurance, the Sunderland Elementary School budget and the town’s shares of the Frontier Regional School, South County Senior Center and South County EMS budgets represent the most significant drivers, aside from a general trend of rising costs, Selectboard Chair Nathaniel Waring said.
“While it’s lovely to have the idea that maybe that one bill of mine, that tax bill, will not increase by large swaths over a period of time, that’s not realistic necessarily,” Waring told his fellow Selectboard members and the Finance Committee. “You can’t run a town on nothing, and we’ve been trying really hard to run a town on nothing.”
Frontier Regional School
Although Frontier Regional School’s budget has grown by an average of 2.67% over the past seven years, the first draft included an atypical 6.95% increase of $923,460.
After budgeting for an initial 18% increase in health care costs heading into fiscal year 2026, the Frontier Regional School District and other members of the Hampshire County Group Insurance Trust faced another 20% increase in October.
Heading into FY27, the initial draft of Frontier’s budget accounted for a total 40% increase for health insurance, coupling the 20% Oct. 1 bump with a placeholder of an additional 20% increase for anticipated premiums, according to Shelley Poreda, director of business administration at the Frontier Regional and Union 38 school districts. This initial budget would have brought Sunderland’s assessment to about $2.92 million, representing a 12.61% hike of $326,669 from FY26.
However, members of the Hampshire County Group Insurance Trust voted on Feb. 25 to increase the rates for FY27 by 12.48%, which was less than the school districts had anticipated. That being the case, Poreda noted at a Feb. 25 meeting in Whately that the sum that voters will need to approve at Annual Town Meetings will go down.
Additionally, on Feb. 10, the School Committee discussed a reduction of $400,000, using $100,000 in rural aid and cutting six to seven positions that equate to $300,000.
The reduced budget would lower Sunderland’s share to nearly $2.81 million, representing a bump of 8.58%, or $222,232, from FY26.
Of Frontier’s four member towns, Sunderland’s increase represents the highest, with Deerfield closest behind at $113,946, a 2.44% increase from FY26. According to Finance Committee member Dylan Korpita, rising enrollment largely accounted for this increase. According to Poreda, while enrollment dropped in Conway and Deerfield and remained the same in Whately, per data from October 2025, eight more Sunderland students enrolled, raising the town’s required contribution for the Frontier Regional School budget.
“The share of the cost burden is shifting toward us, and this is aside from the cost increase we might be seeing at these schools. … If they didn’t have cost increases, we still would be picking up a bigger share of the burden,” Korpita said.
“It happens to [every town]. This is unfortunately our year, so here we are,” Waring said.
Waring said that while increasing enrollment leads to higher costs for the town, the rise indicates “healthy growth” in Sunderland.
“To me, these are investments,” Korpita added. “We are investing in educating our kids.”
Sunderland Elementary School
For Sunderland Elementary School, the draft budget that Poreda presented at the Feb. 11 School Committee meeting included a 18.31% increase of $657,899 over FY26. In an email on Tuesday, Poreda said “natural budget increases to maintain level services and programs,” along with higher costs for special education placement outside the district, grant changes and the addition of two new instructional assistants led to this growth.
“The School Committee and administration recognize that this level of increase is likely untenable for the town and are actively reviewing the proposed budget to identify potential reductions,” Poreda wrote in the email.
Poreda added that the School Committee and administration discussed a $250,000 reduction that would bring the budget to a roughly 10% increase over the FY26 numbers that may involve adjusting student-facing teaching positions. She said this reduction is “not official” as the School Committee has not yet reviewed or voted on the cut.
“This is a challenging budget season, and the decisions ahead will not be easy for the Sunderland School Committee to make, but the committee remains committed to balancing fiscal responsibility with maintaining the quality of educational services for Sunderland Elementary School students,” Poreda continued.
Health insurance and the Senior Center
For FY27, health insurance for town employees through the Massachusetts Interlocal Insurance Association will raise by 8.6%, about $70,000, according to Torres.
“It’s not double-digits, but it’s still significant,” Torres said.
Sunderland’s share of the South County Senior Center’s operating budget request came to $125,751, according to Senior Center Director Jennifer Ferrara. The ask marks a $72,889 increase from the request that came before voters at last year’s Annual Town Meeting as the Senior Center Board of Oversight considers renting a new space.
After weighing several options, the board is considering the 12,150-square-foot office building owned by Delta Sand and Gravel Inc. According to Ferrara, the rent should cost approximately $168,000 annually, with renovation expenses folded into this amount.
To shoulder these increases, Waring said he anticipates an override will be necessary to avoid losses such as eliminating police officer positions or reducing library hours.
“The Frontier budget alone is more money than we have to spend this year,” he said. “This has been keeping me up for quite a while now trying to figure out how to make this work.”
Waring advised that board and committee members should communicate the likelihood of an override with town departments, as well as ask the employees to prepare reduced budgets in the event of a failed override.